Yasser Arafat, after Suha Arafat had delivered a speech claiming that Israel had deliberately poisoned Palestinians through environmental degradation and the use of "poisonous gas". Some Israeli supporters said that Clinton never should have kissed the wife of the Palestinian leader, especially after such inflammatory remarks. The following day, Clinton denounced Suha Arafat's allegations, and said that Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat had told her Suha Arafat had been referring to 'tear gas' and not 'poison gas'. The kiss became a campaign issue, especially with Jewish voters. Clinton said it was a formality akin to a handshake, saying that to not have done so would have caused a diplomatic incident. Clinton later wrote that the live Arabic-to-English translation had failed to convey the accurate nature of her remarks: "Had I been aware of her hateful words, I would have denounced them on the spot." Somewhat surprisingly, Clinton faced an erosion of support from women voters during her campaign, with her numbers declining throughout 1999. This was partly a typical pattern seen with women candidates where they have an early surge of female support, which then wears off, and it was partly due to her early campaign stumbles. But it also reflected the particular set of mixed feelings that women had towards Clinton's marriage and the ambition and the power she derived from it. The problem was especially acute among some female demographics; one of her longtime advisers later said, "Women in the educated professional class? They fucking couldn't stand her. We could never figure out why. We had psychologists come in." Clinton's campaign to all counties, carried by a Ford conversion van, helped to defuse the carpetbagger issue, with many New York residents saying that Clinton "seems like one of us." She discussed local issues such as price supports for the dairy industry, fares for air travel, college tuition levels, and the brain drain in parts of the state. Her political positions were well matched to the different constituencies in the state that she targeted. In a January 2000 appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, she established a rapport with the host that would continue throughout her Senate years and into her 2008 presidential campaign. Clinton formally announced her official candidacy in Purchase, New York in February 2000, adopting the simple name "Hillary" for her campaign literature. Distrustful of the press since her husband's 1992 presidential campaign and her